He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaiah.
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Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
I am the Voice, &c. ( Isaiah 40:3), where I have expounded the meaning. Listen to what the Fathers say about it. "I am a servant, and prepare paths, your hearts, for the Lord," says Theophylact. "I come, he says, to say that He is at the doors who is expected, that you may be prepared to go whithersoever He may bid you," says Cyril.
He accuses them sharply as knowing nothing, and accredits the design or purpose entrusted to him by Prophetic testimony. For I come, he says, to say nothing else than that He, The Looked for, is at length at the doors, yea rather the Lord within the doors. Be ye ready to go whatsoever way He bids you, ye have gone the way given you through Moses, take up that by Christ: for this the choir of the holy Prophets foretold you.
A setting forth of sayings concerning the way that is after Christ.
Isaiah. Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, and He will teach us of His ways and we will walk in His paths.
The same. And an highway shall be there and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; no lion shall be there nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, but the redeemed shall walk there.
The same. I will give beginning to Sign, and will exhort Jerusalem unto the way.
The same. And I will bring the blind by a way that t...
The voice of one crying in the wilderness. See Matthew iii. 3.; Mark i. 3.; Luke iii. 4.; and Isaias xl. 3. by all which John was his immediate precursor. (Witham)
I cannot keep silence while Thou art present, for I am a voice; yea, I am the voice, as it is said, of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord.
When he had spoken some high and lofty words concerning Christ, as if (replying) to their opinion, he immediately betook himself to the Prophet to draw from thence confirmation of his assertion.
